


Midori: When She Turned

by reafterthought



Series: Pebbles Paint the Path [1]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Child Soldiers, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Gen, Original Character(s), Rebellion, cloning, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, ffn challenge: the building blocks challenge, ffn challenge: ultimate sleuth challenge, word count: 2501-3500 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-08-09 12:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reafterthought/pseuds/reafterthought
Summary: Before her menarche and subsequent affinity matching, she is just a colour and a number - a girl like any other in the facility, waiting for her future. She is the nineteenth Midori - Midori XIX.





	1. Six

**Author's Note:**

> Another drabble collection/character peak from the PPP series, this time focusing on Midori XIX (who was mentioned several times in the Momo XIII drabbles).
> 
> Written for:
> 
> Diversity Writing Challenge, d5 – drabble collection with drabbles 50-500 words  
> Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, Ch 2 – Kowloon lvl 2/EDEN Community Area - Write a ficlet novel/collection (Up to 1000 words per chapter)  
> The Building Blocks Challenge, colour prompts #99 – pale green (this chapter only)

When Midori turned six, she felt a little more grown up than the others.

The other birthdays weren't so important. They received their stones: the only way to differentiate one year from the next, but she was the only one on their table to have five stones, and that meant she was the first of them to glimpse the training room.

And that glimpse of the training room was the first milestone they reached – assuming they even made it that long.

Her table was mostly strangers now. Just last year, they'd been different though only a familiar eye and the number of stones would know the differences between them. Momo was the same, though. Still four stones at the moment, but she'd get her fifth before Midori gained her sixth and that made them part of the same batch, presumably. And the other four between them, but they were different. And more distant because of it.

The numbers muddled somewhere. None of them knew nor cared where the cut-off was, for them being in one cohort instead of another. And it didn't matter. There were many Midori, just like there were many Momo, Pinku. Aka and all the rest. Not too many Murasaki though. They were a rarer breed.

It had to do with the affinities, or so said the rumours. Murasakis had a certain special sort of affinity. Midoris, in contrast, were painfully boring. But boring was good, in the facility. Boring meant things were progressing as per normal. Meant that there was little threat of not meeting a cut and Midoris didn't have a great life expectancy either. That was why she was the nineteenth and Momo was only the thirteenth. Six lives in between. Momo had been on that table before even Midori had come along. She knew Midori XVIII, even if she never spoke of her.

So complicated sometimes, but at other times it didn't matter. Like now. She might be a higher number (but only higher than Momo; the others were higher still, including Pinku whose they didn't even know), but she was older. And she would be the one with the first glimpse of the training room, with a fruit the others would have to wait to taste.

She had this above Momo at least. This above the others at their table that weren't the Murasaki and Aka and Pinku she'd known from before, and so there was only Momo left to measure herself against – though Midoris were only supposed to measure themselves against other Midoris and that was that.

But how could she, when she'd never talk to another Midori unless there were two of them being simultaneously disposed of. And she wouldn't be disposed. The odds were low, but not stacked against her. Aside from Momos, Midoris had the best odds, and the highest success rates to boot. Higher than the Momos, even. They were needed more.

Midori was the nineteenth, but she wasn't going to let number twenty take her place.


	2. Seven

When Midori turned seven, she'd gained an even greater determination to succeed. Pre-training was brutal and only the strongest would survive it, but pre-training also meant she'd passed the first few tests and was well on her way. Many disappeared before they turned six, before they even caught their first glimpse of the training room.

And she'd be damned if she failed now, before she actually got past the last hurdles and into that training room.

And so, when Midori turned seven, she was obsessively checking her undergarments for brown or reddish stains. They didn't show up, of course, unless she'd grazed herself on the leg during pre-training. But she kept waiting. For some, it took six years. The Midori class tended to be pretty quick in terms of maturation, though. Most didn't wait for more than three and this was just the first year.

Still, she was eager. Impatient. Restless energy buzzed under her skin and pre-training could only do so much when she hungered for more. Still, she understood the rationale. Her body ached every day and the training room would push her even harder… but while her body was tired, her soul was ready for more.

So until she got there, she needed to catch her body up to speed and that meant as much time in pre-training as possible, and little else. As it was, once they passed six they had less time for hobbies and rest than before, and more chances to fail. Less time to spend with others at their table. More time to spend with others in their class… but even then it was only at a distance, to observe and compete but never to converse or become companions…

And even those from the other classes, that they ate with, were only fragile and fleeting companions. There'd been several Murasaki already and another Momo, whose personality had long since merged into the blur of her earliest memories. And they'd leave that table eventually as well, either when their menarche came or they lost the natural selection rest. They were tested at every turn, after all, and there wasn't much room to fail. The Murasaki class were often quickly culled and quickly replaced. Her class fell somewhere in the middle and that was far from safety. Pinku, perhaps, could breathe a little easier than the rest of them but even they, rare as they were, had a steep minimum requirement from what she'd learnt.

But she no longer had the luxury to think about the other classes much, anymore. Just how far they'd support her on the field. Just dreaming of the field she'd never see and wouldn't ever see until she first reached and passed through the training room.

And to do that, she needed to be constantly satisfactory in her pre-training and she needed to achieve her menarche.

And the second was out of her control, no matter how she searched.

She could only wait and do her best at the first.


	3. When She Turned Eight

When Midori turned eight, she was five months into her menarche and it hadn’t been as glamorous as she’d dreamed. It had been preceded by a day of stomach cramps enough for her to be curled up in the sterile infirmary, praying for it to pass.

The nurse smiled when she found the stain on the bedsheets. Said it was a moment to be proud of, and that it got easier. And it did: she’d had another two cycles since then and they didn’t lock her up as completely, but she still found herself so slow and stiff and lethargic those days, and no-body else seemed any different at all.

Menarche was something all girls experienced, at some time or other. Cycles were a constant for them: once a month, sometimes a little more or less, they’d strap pads to their underwear and scan their clothes and sheets just a little more vigilantly than otherwise, but it didn’t seem to slow anyone else down.

That wasn’t fair, Midori thought. But she supposed it also wasn’t fair that menarche could happen at any age. After all, the table of her childhood told her that tale: that some could wait until they were sixteen before they left without looking back, and some could be gone as early as five. In a world where everything ran like clockwork, it was the one thing that didn’t quite keep, wasn’t constant. And nobody could do anything about that but hope.

The rest of it, though… Midori knew she had to train and train well. They were targets she had to meet, and times she had to meet them in. Of course, the training would grow more specialised as she demonstrated talents in certain areas but she was only five months in, as it was. There was a long way to go before she could break out of the norm.

And if she was slowed three days a month, she would only fall further and further behind.

So she had to grit her teeth and work harder the remaining twenty-seven days. And she demanded the same, if not more, of her partner. After all, Betamon didn’t have the same restrictions as her, didn’t have three days a month with painful cramps she could only grit her teeth through. But he also didn’t have legs, and that was a problem in itself. He was limited to the horn on his head and his special attack, at least until he digivolved.

And so in her spare time she worked with him, worked to utilise that horn in different ways, so they could make their way through obstacle courses and come out the victors in sparring matches. He could use his body as a rolling pin quite neatly, now. Could spin on different axis depending on the need. And she could train up her core to bear those cramps a little better, and could train the parts of her body that didn’t depend on her core when she couldn’t.


	4. When She Turned Nine

When Midori turned nine, she started feeling loneliness. But she trained through it, like their kind always did.

Not that she talked to them, though. They were all distantly related, with their green hair and eyes and green stones, but that was about all. She knew she was the nineteenth generation but her parents were just blurs, and sometimes as a child when she’d sat at that table, they’d talked about the foreign concept called parents and they’d been blurs to all the others too.

And they all lived in the dormitory, but that was all. They woke, slept and trained. Their meals weren’t at tables anymore but between training sessions, and they started with the bell and ended with the bell and there was little time in between.

Results mattered, but effort mattered as well and even the extraordinarily talented could be called out if they slacked off.

And then, there was free time before the last and final bell, where they either studied theory or further physical training. And Midori had been one of the ones who’d trained most evenings, before realising that, of the thinning numbers, it was mostly those who’d be active in those free hours. And then she changed her approach: studied more theory and only used the days where she was slowed by other ailments to continue her physical training. And likewise, she set Betamon up with puzzles that trained his mind, so he’d be able to act independently in missions if he needed her to.

But missions were far away. She was still in basic training, after all. Still developing. She might progress some time next year: two years were the minimum, after all. Or she might not. The instructors were mere voices over the intercom or instructions on the board, but they were strict. They had high standards. And she knew she still had a ways to go before she got there.

They both still had a ways to go before they got there. Holes to patch up. Weaknesses to eradicate, or else cover up so they wouldn’t hinder.

They were slowed down by many things. Her age, making her smaller than some of the others. Betamon’s lack of legs, and the fact that he was an aquatic digimon, meaning that he didn’t exactly shine on land. The stomach cramps that slowed her down for approximately three days every month, and her own frustration at all of those delays.

But, by now, she was one of the best swimmers in the training room. She had to be, to keep up with Betamon. And there were few aquatic digimon, which meant she could show off her talent there. The colouring of Betamon’s skin helped camouflaging in the forest too, but Betamon still had trouble jumping high and far enough to leap from tree to tree.

She searched carefully for those weaknesses, and worked doggedly at them. If two years was the minimum time in the basic course, then two years were her goal.


	5. When She Turned Ten

When Midori turned ten, she was close to breaking point and she knew it.

Two years had seemed like a tangible goal last year but it didn’t feel like she’d made much progress since. She was drowning in her own ineptitude, in the endless training, the endless getting nowhere and Betamon was much the same.

So what if they could swim like fishes if they couldn’t dash through the grass unseen?

And her body burned. Oh, how it burned. The painkillers were band-aids and she knew it was dangerous because it meant she could push harder, go further –

Except it didn’t really look to her like she was getting further and she was liable to tear a muscle, break a bone, if this kept up. She’d been lucky so far, that she hadn’t, but it could happen. It could very easily happen and a broken bone could be the end of her, here where the training never let up at all.

But she struggled on because up was the only direction she could struggle towards, better was the only thing she could struggle to be. The others struggled on as well, and the numbers thinned. Each time, she wondered pessimistically if she’d be next, then hope feverishly she would not be.

She wasn’t. Numbers dwindled but she perservered. She didn’t improve by leaps and bounds but whatever ground she was gaining, they were gaining, was just enough.

In the twilight of their self-training hours, she and Betamon blended into the grasses and the waters.

But they were still very far away from being assassains.

And the training continued. The numbers dwindled. New skills were added before either of them felt like they’d grasped the old ones and they struggled, they continue to struggle on.

Sometimes, Midori found herself coughing up blood and she knew, then, that she needed to ease up on the painkillers. And those nights would be when they’d bite their losses and ease up from the physical training as well. Betamon was good that way. He didn’t fight her weakness, just accepted the break with her.

They trained with puzzles, of course, during their breaks: puzzles to stretch their mind, and ones to increase their situational awareness as well. They learnt from others, adapted it all into their own routine. They did everything. Tried everything. All the while she knew that one extra thing could be too much, one extra tablet could be too much, one extra minute could be too much…

It was a fragile balancing act and she tried so very hard to balance it.

And, like that, they’d almost reached two years.

Then, the desperation took years. She wasn’t quite eleven yet but she was running out of time, and Betamon could feel her desperation keenly.

Time was running out. The clock was ticking. The training room was oh so very empty now. They were a bad crop of Midoris and they’re scraping at the bottom of the barrel now.

She wanted to survive.


	6. When She Turned Eleven

When Midori turned eleven, she learnt the true bittersweet nature of failure.

It was coming. It had been a long time coming, truthfully, but she still couldn’t quite believe it when it came. She’d been marching into the training room with all the others (and all wasn’t very many, these days) when a white-clad arm had blocked her way.

That was that, really. She stopped. Stared. The training room doors closed with a bang that screamed its finality. Then, finally, she moved.

The man came with her. Read out a quick statement: pure and practiced. She was to collect her things, be reassigned. But this wasn’t the reassignment of success. He was too stone faced, for that. And Betamon wasn’t here, for that.

She collected her things silently. There weren’t many of them: her green sleep clothes and training tunics, her digivice, and her eleven green stones.

And then even they were lost: packed delicately into a box and replaced with grey.

Grey for failure, presumably. And, of course, no new digivice.

She followed the white man down halls she’d never been, halls she’d never known. Then, finally, there was a tiny little cell, cloaked in grey.

She stepped into the room. The man didn’t follow; there was only her.

Only her, dressed in grey, in this grey room.

And she learnt the true meaning of loneliness, here where there was nothing else: no direction, no company, no hope.

This was where failed Midoris went, she thought.

And, after that, she didn’t know.

Time passed. She didn’t know how much time passed. She moved about restlessly but there was little point to it. She could barely move in the confined space, and lethargy was quick to settle. There were no meals here. No water. No restroom breaks. She wondered how long her bladder would hold. She wondered how long her stomach would hold. She wondered how long her throat would hold.

She wondered how long her sanity would hold.

And she slumped against a wall, half awake, half asleep as the despairing lethargy quickly took hold.

No-one talked about what happened to the failures. They’d thought it was because it was too terrifying to voice, but maybe, now, she thinks it’s because no-one really knew. No-one lived to tell the tale.

This felt like a slow and painful way to die, dwelling on failure.

She closed her eyes.

Time silently slipped by.

Then, she was awoken by the sounds of banging, by the wall trembling against her. Disorientated, she blinked. But the walls were still grey. She was still in this little prison of failure.

Then the wall fell away. Light streamed in: painful, blinding light.

Then, arms around her. Burning warm arms around her, and a voice that sounded vaguely familiar but it had been too long without company and even longer too without that voice.

But she had pink eyes and hair and a Floramon clinging to one leg.

And, to her other leg, a very familiar Betamon.


End file.
